"My Idol Is Broken": A Governor Denounces a Senator to His Face

TACOMA, Nov. 17. — Senator John B. Allen and ex-Governor Miles C. Moore hold the fort this morning in the Ledger, in about four or five columns of interesting reading matter. Allen denies that he stood in with Squire's friends to elect the Seattle statesman to congress the first and second time. Ex-Governor Moore says that the senator sold out to Squire and his friends at the first election after promising to go for General Sprague, and continues:

"No amount of rhetoric, no amount of sophistry, no amount of affected indignation, can divert the attention of the public from these naked facts. Undeterred by the thunders of senatorial rhetoric, I regretfully but emphatically assert that in the test of trial he has proven to measure less in stature than a man of honor.

"On the second night after the first election, Allen sent a friend to request me to come to his headquarters. After some hesitation, I went there with Senator Fairweather, and found Mr. Allen and his brother Hiram together. Mr. Allen requested a private interview, which I declined. He then began in a studied, halting manner, in the sophistical style of which he is master, to make a statement of his case, which is practically reproduced in his letter to the Ledger, after two years' practice, and which has the same fatal defect as the original.

"I listened patiently to Mr. Allen and replied: 'Mr. Allen, that is a very ingeniously construed statement; very creditable to your intellect. It has, however, one fatal defect. It is not the truth. Now, Mr. Allen, if you are through, I will talk for awhile. You will perhaps remember that ten years ago there was a republican convention in Walla Walla county, composed of sixty members. Yourself and Tom Brents were aspiring to the position of delegate in congress. Fifty-nine of these delegates were for Brents; one for Allen. You will, perhaps, remember that I was that deluded individual. I mention this to recall to your mind the fact that when I espoused your cause in Walla Walla county you did not have many friends. From that day to this, in season and out of season, sometimes with more zeal than discretion, I have fought your battles until now you are a United States senator, full fledged. Tonight I will serve notice on you that from this time forth our political paths must be apart. You will never be able to say that I deserted you when you needed friends. I desert you in the hey-day of your power. My idol is broken. What I had imagined pure gold has turned to common clay. You have betrayed me and you have betrayed other old-time, steadfast friends. You have achieved a temporary success. It cannot be lasting, and you will derive no comfort or satisfaction from it, because you have obtained it at the price of treachery and deceit. I have no further favors to ask of you, and if you find my name appended to a letter or a petition you will please regard it as a forgery. I say these harsh things more in sorrow than in anger; I say them because they are true. A man does not lightly break up a friendship such as ours has been, but I could not suffer the indignity you have put upon me in these last days in silence and retain any degree of self respect.'

"Mr. Allen said time would convince me of my mistake, to which I replied that I hoped it might. This closed the interview.

"During the two years that have elapsed I have availed myself of every opportunity to get light on the disgraceful betrayal of General Sprague and his friends by John B. Allen. With the exception of less than half a dozen who were parties to the combination deal, or acquiesced in it, there is a singular unanimity of opinion regarding the baseness of the surrender. The two senators have had apparently friendly terms since then. During the last contest at Olympia, resulting in the re-election of Squire, Allen was posing in his favorite character of apparent neutrality, but, in the language of another, he was found holding the ladder while Squire climbed into the senate a second time, while continuing to display his affection for Pierce county and its candidates."

Governor Moore also says: "My quarrel with John B. Allen has no interest of significance beyond the fact that a man tried in the balance by one friend and found wanting, is liable to be found too light in other times and under similar strains. The man who is treacherous to a life-long friend is liable to prove unfaithful to other friends."